EA Sports presents the year’s new FIFA game, with new next gen graphics and revamped goalies – but are all the changes for the best?
As far as EA are concerned this year’s FIFA is all about emotion. Emotion and intensity in fact, if you go by the game’s tag line. Not only are the next gen visuals good enough to show the pain and elation on player’s faces but a new artificial intelligence system has them sulking, shouting, and celebrating just like a real player. So much so that they’re in danger of ending up more excited about the game than you are.
Describing a new FIFA always involves a shopping list of newly invented marketing catchphrases, and ‘emotional intelligence’ is the one used to describe the more passionate computer players that now fill the game. Thanks to new efforts to recreate the atmosphere of each individual stadium – including all 20 from the Premier League – the game now feels more theatrical and alive, and not just a clinical simulation.
But none of that actually changes the way the game plays, and it’s immediately obvious that in terms of tangible mechanical changes FIFA 15 is rather short on new ideas. When showing off ‘next gen goalkeepers’ is the second highest priority of the marketing campaign you do get the feeling that the franchise is beginning to lose a sense direction. Although the bigger problem is that the new goalies almost end up ruining the whole experience.
Video game goalkeepers in general have always been a problem. Like the rest of the game you want them to seem realistic, and yet at the same time you don’t want every game to end in a no score draw. But predictably improving the goalkeepers has meant turning them into supernatural agents of goal-stopping impregnability. Despite all the efforts to humanise the game going up against the new goalies feels completely unrealistic and their abilities are, in their current state, seriously overpowered.
If fans are vocal enough about it (and we’re sure they will be) then we’ve no doubt EA will change the way goalies work via a patch. But the fact is their superhuman revamp is not the only controversial change to the game.
FIFA 14 was unusual in that the next gen version played quite a bit differently to the last gen ones, with a much slower, heavier game of football. Bizarrely though FIFA 15 is back to being a fast-paced arcade game, with a tweaked passing system seeing the ball zip between players almost like the defenders aren’t there. Which is, of course, no fun at all when you are the defenders and you have to put up with the finicky new sliding tackles.
Change is good but there’s no logic to the way FIFA 15 plays compared to its predecessor. It’s neither better nor worse, just completely different. And you get the horrible feeling next year is going to take the opposite approach once again, simply because nobody can think of any substantial improvements or new ideas to justify another £60 purchase.
The lack of meaningful advancement isn’t just limited to the gameplay, as the interface and single-player modes are so similar to FIFA 14 we almost expected EA to describe this as a ‘Legacy Edition’. They haven’t even bothered to copy across new ideas introduced in their last gen-only World Cup game, despite things like making training drills part of the career mode being such obviously good ideas.
The lack of attention given to the single-player modes is clearly because EA’s focus is on the ever popular Ultimate Team, which on the Xbox One also has the Ultimate Team Legends retro players. The community elements have been expanded again this year, with loan players now making it much easier to acquire that superstar striker you’ve always wanted. You can create dream team line-ups before you buy anyone and all the share and comment facilities mean you can chat and strategise with friends in what has become literally a game in itself.
But just because Ultimate Team is successful (and lucrative) is no excuse for EA ignoring the rest of the game. Given that the problem with yearly sports updates is finding anything useful to change and add actively ignoring obvious problems, and making others worse, shows a very strange sense of priorities.
It’s not all bad news though and the new Team Sheets option is probably the best new feature in FIFA 15, as it allows you detailed control over the tactics of every player. It almost turns FIFA into a player manager title and is hopefully going to be an area of further expansion in the future.
Even ignoring the lack of competition (PES 2015 isn’t out till November 13) FIFA 15 is still a good game, but it confuses changes with improvements and many will find last year’s game to be the more enjoyable. Perhaps it’s because the franchise is still stuck between generations, and it’ll take at least till next year to focus things entirely on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
But whatever the excuse it would be nice to see changes implemented because they were the best decision for the game, not just a necessity of selling this year’s new product.
In Short: Different but certainly not better, despite the amazing next gen visuals FIFA has never seemed so indecisive and lacking in direction.
Pros: The graphics and presentation are fantastic, and the ‘emotional intelligence’ works very well. Ultimate Team is as engrossing as ever, with some useful new additions.
Cons: No sense of continuity with last year’s game and defending is now often a chore. New goalies are deeply flawed. Almost no changes to single-player mode.
0 comments:
Post a Comment